An Investigation of Postoperative Pain, Why Still in Hospital and Days Alive and Out of Hospital Following Transoral Robotic Surgery for Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Unknown Primary and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

The morbidity after TORS has not yet been fully investigated, but a recent studies suggest that pain is one of the primary causes for unplanned readmission This issue has been investigated by Clayburgh D et al who found that a prolonged dexamethasone regime lowered the pain scores on day three after surgery. The patients treated with the prolonged dexamethasone regime also showed a significant improvement in the food consistency they were capable to swallow and had a shortened length of stay (LOS). Recently, a pilot-study showed, that an intensified dexamethasone regime among TORS patients reduced the pain level to that of a standard tonsillectomy. Besides an analgesic effect glucocorticoids furthermore poses an anti-inflammatory quality which can be used to lower the physiological stress and inflammatory response following surgery and may prevent organ dysfunctions and complications The analgesic effect of dexamethasone has been the topic of many clinical studies, and are well described in various surgical fields. However, the optimal dose and regime for glucocorticoids prescription has so far not been established. The evidence favoring one dosage regime and an optimal prescribed dose is restricted by the variance in the regimes used in various clinical trials and the fact that there is a need for clinical trial investigating steroids with pain as the primary endpoint Consequently, it is important to thoroughly investigate and optimize the analgesic regime after TORS.

Hospitalization So far when evaluating the long-term consequences of TORS, the main focus has been on oncological outcomes and quality of life with attention to functional outcomes, i.e. feeding tube dependency and dysphagia while the LOS following TORS and why the patient is hospitalized after the procedure have been sparsely studied.

The reason why TORS patients are still hospitalized after the procedure and which clinical and organizational factors contribute to the hospitalization have not yet been examined and understood but is highly relevant in order to understand and improve the postoperative care.

A method to assess the efficiency of a therapy have emerged from the cardiology field and is called Days Alive and Out of Hospital (DAOH). This has been used in investigations of heart failure patients and myocardial infarction patients. This outcome combines mortality and morbidity, and accounts for the number but also duration of several hospitalizations after the primary discharge.

DAOH has only sparse been used in the surgical field, and only in few studies in the cardiac surgery area. The measurement is a patient-centered outcome that provide better information to the patient and surgeon when planning surgery, and can be used for quality improvement studies since it accounts for effective and efficient care.